hey
sometimes affect not to recognise actual distinctions and abilities, or
study enviously the means of annulling them. So long, however, as by the
operation of any causes whatever some real competence accrues to anyone,
it is for the general interest that this competence should bear its
natural fruits, diversifying the face of society and giving its
possessor a corresponding distinction.

[Sidenote: Advantage of inequality.]

Variety in the world is an unmixed blessing so long as each distinct
function can be exercised without hindrance to any other. There is no
greater stupidity or meanness than to take uniformity for an ideal, as
if it were not a benefit and a joy to a man, being what he is, to know
that many are, have been, and will be better than he. Grant that no one
is positively degraded by the great man's greatness and it follows that
everyone is exalted by it. Beauty, genius, holiness, even power and
extraordinary wealth, radiate their virtue and make the world in which
they exist a better and a more joyful place to live in. Hence the
insatiable vulgar curiosity about great people, and the strange way in
which the desire for fame (by which the distinguished man sinks to the
common level) is met and satisfied by the universal interest in whatever
is extraordinary. This avidity not to miss knowledge of things notable,
and to enact vicariously all singular roles, shows the need men have of
distinction and the advantage they find even in conceiving it. For it is
the presence of variety and a nearer approach somewhere to just and
ideal achievement that gives men perspective in their judgments and
opens vistas from the dull foreground of their lives to sea, mountain,
and stars.

No merely idle curiosity shows itself in this instinct; rather a mark of
human potentiality that recognises in what is yet attained a sad
caricature of what is essentially attainable. For man's spirit is
intellectual and naturally demands dominion and science; it craves in
all things friendliness and beauty. The least hint of attainment in
these directions fills it with satisfaction and the sense of realised
expectation. So much so that when no inkling of a supreme fulfilment is
found in the world or in the heart, men still cling to the notion of it
in God or the hope of it in heaven, and religion, when it entertains
them with that ideal, seems to have reached its highest height. Love of
uniformity would quench the thirst for new outlets